Suspension
by Bad Yellow
Summary: One normal day turns into complete chaos, drama, and hilarity. Featuring two of your favorite Degrassi characters.
1. Mr Nice Guy

Well, kiddums. Second fic. But this one's multi-chaptered! Que exciting! It's by me/Aubrey (keeponwritin) and the lovely Amy (love-fool.) Woohoo for that.  
  
This most likely will make very little sense until the first two chapters are complete, and the second chapter's not coming until uh....later. So there. Woo! Enjoy.  
  
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Under normal circumstances, I would not even think about setting a foot in this mall. The place was just swarming with people I tried so hard to avoid during the school week, so why would I possibly want to enter their lair when I had two days and three nights of precious weekend away from their snobby comments and unnecessary glares? I do admit, I was kind of one of them at one point--aka from the moment Ash and I made ourselves official (ninth grade) to the moment Downtown Sasquatch broke up (eleventh grade). In other words, I was never popular by own merits, you know, by actually being likable, or anything. Popularity in high school and the dictionary definition of popularity are two very different things. Popularity in high school is pounding into people's brains that you're ten times better than they'll ever be, or being friends with these people. I was one of the latter. Maybe. Or maybe I was just friends with the latter. Something like that. You never understand the ridiculousness of the situation until you've removed yourself from it completely. You're not cynical about popularity when you're riding on easy street and hanging with people like Jimmy and Spinner daily. Then, one day you find yourself alone, in your formerly-garage room, pondering your meaningless existence, smoking pot, and you just have to burst out laughing and wonder how you ever got yourself caught up in such crap. And you laugh until you almost cry, but not because you're laughing so hard. Cause you start to realize it's really not funny at all.  
  
And that's why I didn't go to the mall. Usually. Except today.   
  
I love the irony in that Degrassi's this huge community and we've got a ton of strip malls, all these places where you can buy the latest Seventeen magazine trend or the cutest little pair of flip-flops, but there's only one decent music store within a twenty mile radius. And then I have to wonder, was there a logical reason why they stuck a great record store in the middle of teenybopper paradise? Really, if I have to swerve out of the way walking to the store to avoid another herd of squealing prepubescent girls, I will not think twice about taking their latest Avril CDs, snapping them in half and chucking them over the ledge. I don't deal well with people anymore, especially ones who refuse to think about anyone but themselves.   
  
So I'm an antisocial loser. I'd like to take the easy way out and place the blame on Ashley. She'd forgive me, then hate me, then forgive me, then hate me more than she hated me previously. You'd think people would get tired of listening to Ash's same old crap about Craig is a complete waste of life and Craig doesn't deserve to live, but apparently, people enjoy hearing the same news in different form over and over again. But, there was that tiny detail that after every forgiveness, I did something to piss her off again, which then made her hate me again. So then technically, I guess it was my fault. But it isn't my fault she gets mad so easily. The point is, for some godforsaken reason, people actually listened to her, and they started believing that I was a hedonistic sex-craving bastard who would cheat on any girl if she didn't put out on the first date.   
  
I'd love to say I had a girlfriend. Someone that I could be with and together we could laugh about the rumors and tune out the world. Perhaps someone like, say...Manny Santos. I give her some credit. She doesn't preach to the masses about my complete worthlessness. Instead, she silently hates me and refuses to speak to me, unless completely necessary. I think she's with JT Yorke now. I think.  
  
Don't even ask why the band split. I don't know. Marco was spending all this time with Dylan and doing all these extracurriculars, and Jimmy wanted to concentrate on (aka Hazel) and Spinner couldn't find rehearsal time between school, tutoring and work. Well, it's not my fault that Marco's a lovesick perfectionist, Jimmy's whipped and Spinner's a moron. Therefore, Downtown Sasquatch's downfall was not my fault.   
  
At least there was one thing that wasn't my fault.  
  
Anyone I've missed? I guess I was friends with Emma in the beginning of ninth grade. Things died down, then we were kind of back to being cool in the beginning of tenth grade...and then I cheated on Ashley and Emma joined the rest of the female population in hating my guts. Then, there's Sean. If I had to name one person I even remotely considered a friend, I guess Sean would be it. He was my dealer. Yep, I got my pot from Sean Cameron, after the small blip of a friendship in ninth grade, he returns to my life to deal me my happiness. We occasionally smoked together, but I usually did it alone. It was better that way. Helped me realize my true potential. Which was zilch, naturally.  
  
So there I was, on a beautiful freezing cold snowy day in January, headphones snugly over my ears, blasting Pink Floyd into them. Buying new music was a cheap thrill in my oh-so-exciting life. I found nothing else I really wanted. Or anything I could really afford. So, I headed over to the cash register and laid the CD down on the counter.  
  
Dark Side of the Moon, she said monotonously. Total classic. Was there a reason why cashiers at record stores felt the need to comment on your choices? It's my niece's favorite. She ripped off my receipt and put it into the bag with the CD. Well, was. Her psychiatrist had to wean her off of it. But she says she still really likes it. She handed me the bag and wryly smiled. Have a nice day, sir.  
  
Uh, thanks, I said, grabbing my bag and taking off as quickly as possible. That sure brightened my day. I sighed wistfully and nostalgically for no particular reason, as I made my way back to the elevator, to make my lonely way home. I wasn't usually this depressed. But the sight of little girls in miniskirts and too much make-up was really enough for anyone to become morbidly depressed.  
  
I reached out and pushed the down button by the elevator, and waited only a few seconds before it came. I stepped in and stared down at my feet as someone else entered.  
  
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Yeah, it doesn't make sense right now. But it will. So deal. I mean, wait. It'll be updated soon. cough


	2. Material Girl

There are two kinds of people who go to the mall. There is the kind like myself who get drunk off the sales and worship retail therapy. Then there is the kind that adorns the food court, arcades, and music stores like tacky costume jewelry on someone with a gobbler neck. I could avoid the latter rather easily in Wet Seal, where I frequented. They would probably look at me with an eye roll before scampering off to drown themselves in greasy pound inducing pizza and talk about the new death metal CD. However, those were sentiments I would have uttered back in the grade eight when I was convinced that the world was in black and white; losers and the popular kind. I can't honestly say that I'm brimming with sunshine and kindness, but I've humanized a bit.

Usually on these mall outings, I would be accompanied by Hazel. However, today was a bit different. I informed no one of the said outing and decided to go by my lonesome. It was almost surreal. I realize now that when I'm not encased in a flurry of blue and yellow pompom bearers that I have this yearning to be by myself. It's hard to find alone time when people are badgering you with countless demands and expectations. After a rather hectic morning at the local party supply store, I needed retail therapy to aid in giving me the relaxation I desperately craved.

The mid-winter dance was scheduled for three weeks after this coming Friday. Naturally, I had been a part of the dance committee which was headed by Ashley. She had put Emma Nelson and me in charge of decorations. I still can't begin to fathom why in the world Emma would have considered joining something that didn't involve saving some bizarre species of a Malaysian turtle. She claimed that she needed more activities for her college transcript to be deemed acceptable in her book and I decided it would be wise not to pry into the boring world of Emma Nelson. But it wasn't Emma that made the outing unbelievably unbearable. For once, I was not subjected to her ramblings about what kind of trees the invitations should be processed from. Instead I point the finger of blame at Ash for making the trip a living hell. It all started out simple, Ash decided to tag along with us to be the overseer of our shopping trip. I don't honestly know why, considering the fact that I was perfectly capable of forcing Emma to buy the decorations that I thought would illuminate the mood and theme of the dance best. But as Ash and I searched among the luau decorations and Emma had scampered off to either go to the bathroom or look at table clothes, memories came flooding back to Ash about the ninth grade end of the year dance. Our trip down memory lane continued with Ash making a string of bitter comments about the local incarnation of Satan as Emma came back with a set of table cloths in hand. It was an endless cycle of bashing that just got so redundant after a while. Needless to say, I stormed off into my car after everything was paid for and cranked up Katy Rose as I treated myself to a Virginia Slim and headed onto the mall in search of retail therapy. Did they not know I had a completely atrocious fight with Spinner on Friday night?

I still don't know whether compulsive shopping is better than having a god awful nicotine addiction. Both of them cost you tons of money. However, I needed something like an addiction in my horribly monotonous life. Sure, to the rest of the deluded population of Degrassi Community School, I was perceived to have this marvelously exciting life fit for tabloids. That just goes to show how completely easy it is to keep up an image of that of an a-list celebrity. Well, easy for me, anyway. There are some people that can't even keep up one single image. For me, I'm continually changing between images at the top of a hat. At home, I'm the prized daughter who is placed upon an altar of perfection while being worshipped. At school, I'm brimming with enthusiasm towards all things that are related to the spirit squad while taking time out of my oh-so busy social schedule to belittle the masses below me. At church, I'm a bundle of joy who partakes in charity events by the force of my parents. In actuality, I'm a chain smoking seventeen year old overflowing with narcissism and drowning in it. I'm probably doomed to look like I stepped out of one of those anti-drug commercials, wrapped in wrinkly skin and cancer. However, to let the entire world know this wouldn't be the smartest idea in the world. Then the whole game of pretending would lose its fun because there would be no need for pretending. Therefore, we can't let the world get a hold of that tidbit of information.

Everything seems to be a routine lately. I mean, there is no such thing as excitement anymore. I go through these same motions every single day. Sure, there are these completely anal people who have a set routine they follow every day. But last time I checked, I wasn't one of them. Maybe that's how the whole smoking thing started, for excitement. I mean, nothing spells excitement like carrying around an oxygen tank when I'm eighty.

So, here I am in a pool of pink in the Macy's dressing room. I looked like a gob of stretched up bubble gum smeared on a park side bench, silently waiting to ruin someone's pair of pants. However, there was no way I was going to look like this in public but I couldn't part with these pink corduroy pants. They fit like a glove and plus they were the best shade of pink ever created by man. So naturally, I had to piss fifty five dollars and ninety nine cents of my paycheck from Dale's Ice Cream Parlor on Thirteenth Street on these.

After working my way out of the pink corduroy flare pants and into my dark antique denim hip huggers, I sauntered into the core of the dressing room. Doors that led to the places where people made crucial fashion decisions engulfed me. It smelled like some cheap Ralph Lauren perfume knock-off mixed with hints of either mango or tangerine body spray. My nose was getting choked by these atrocious smells, so I quickly made my way from the dressing rooms and towards the cash register near the misses' career apparel section.

A woman with ginger colored hair adorned the counter as she babbled on her store phone to the manager or someone. I didn't really pay attention, considering my attention was being averted to the throbbing sensation in my hand. I hated the torture that accompanied going to a buy two get one free shoe sale. Why must I be punished for shopping smart? I swear, the world is seriously going insane. She informed me of the price as I fished out money from the depths of my purse. I tapped my foot impatiently; I wanted to get out of this place. Sure, the mall had this mood that I had grown to love, but nicotine cravings do not care about that. They just want to be fulfilled whenever they please. Sounds kind of like me. Funny that.

After receiving my change and my paid for pants in a Macy's bag, I trudged out of the store and entered the mall. It was overflowing with people who were chattering about with their families, significant others, friends, or shopping buddies. People who were by themselves in such a social location tended to stand out completely. However, I was completely and utterly accustomed to doing just that in a positive way. People tend to get the idea in their minds that going to the mall by yourself must mean you are a leper who no one would dare accompany to the mall. I just needed to get out of here, have a smoke, and go home and celebrate conquering great sales.

I passed by many mall attractions as I looked for that sacred mall elevator. When I was younger, I thought of it as a ride. I would often wave at the people below but none of them ever really saw me, save the occasional mall dwelling pervert. Now I know that it's just this clear vessel that transports us from top to bottom or from bottom to top. That kind of just sucks the fun out of elevator rides.

Finally, I arrived at the opaque elevator. It wasn't the mall that had those rides I had cherished in my childhood. I couldn't wave to the masses lining the cold linoleum floors, searching for a new outfit or a cure for boredom. It wasn't a complete tragedy. I would manage. I stepped inside the elevator with my assortment of bags in hand. Oh fun, it looked as though I wasn't going to be alone on my ride to the bottom floor.


	3. Must Get Out

I'm not sure what my first clue was.

Elevator rides can be pretty awkward, if you let them. Sometimes even just standing there, intensely pondering whether or not the other will speak is enough to just drive a person insane. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know. But in any event, being stuck with someone you don't like in a confined area for any amount of time is tedious, be it hours or seconds.

At first, I honestly thought she was another trendy mall-dwelling teenybopper.

I don't know what makes me hate the silence of elevator rides. I was never that self-conscious, especially now that I've lost all the respect I had for myself as a human being. I think what scares me is strangers striking up conversations. Some people out there--damn their souls--have deemed it semi-appropriate to just, start talking to anyone who appears to be alone. I mean, what is THAT? What fuels these people? Some sort of bizarre desperation for human contact? Is this some big program to promote unity? Even if there weren't skeevy untrustworthy morons in the world, I still don't find it necessary to turn to a person you will most likely never talk to ever again in your entire life after 30 more seconds and ask rigidly, So...where'd you go today? It's just not right. It goes against human nature. I used to be friendly, and I used to not question it, but I think it began to bother me when every person seemed to ask me why I was alone. Going out somewhere alone--what a strange and foreign concept to us creatures of conformity. Give me a break.

But really, it was then that I realized that I was, indeed, here, standing in an elevator with the infamous Paige Michalchuk mere feet away.

See, you need to know something about me. I don't develop strong opinions of people. When I first met Sean, my thoughts were just, "Cool. A guy who will talk to me." And then there was that one week in tenth grade, when everyone's seemed so on edge about Marco being gay. Spin was totally flipping out and kept asking how a guy could actually get turned on by another guy. Jimmy was fully supportive, 100% behind Marco and totally cool with it. And me? So he's gay.... whatever? I have never cared less about anything in my entire life.

I saved my strong opinions for the people who, in my life, best exemplified what I hated and loved in other people.

I think Paige was one of them.

If you're going to spend your life feeling bitter about conformity and popularity, who better than Paige Michalchuk to blame and to detest for all those years? She really had it all, everything you could possibly dislike and more. She was like their ringleader, their headmaster, calling one and all to join her parade of mindless self-absorption. And as it turns out, she was supposedly "worse" before I came to Degrassi. Is that even possible? Apparently, she snubbed Ashley because of some minor thing at the end of eighth grade. Not that I'm on Ash's side or anything--but come on, what is this, first grade? Everything was so black and white in Paige's world...from what I saw, anyway.

So here we stood, mere feet away from one another. Have we ever had a decent conversation in our lives? No. Does that change that things right then felt insanely tense? No.

Then, I started thinking about it. I was kind of funny, in a way, that we'd never really spoken, yet there was a lot of... history between us. It was as if there were all of these interweaving plotlines of our lives, and we seemed to be caught up in a lot of them together without ever realizing it. Our main connection was Ash, which was great in tenth grade, firing up the hate she already would've hate for me due to the simple fact that she had two X chromosomes, attended Degrassi, and was not living under a rock. From then on... oh, I don't know, maybe it's just a guess, but from the glares when I walk by and the eye-rolling whenever I say anything to her (which, believe me, I've tried to avoid but school-related things are kind of necessary), I'd say she hasn't liked me since. And that's, of course, assuming she liked me in the first place. Which I doubt.

I was just going to let it slide. I was going to stand there and pretend like I did not care that she was standing mere feet away. I was going to take the awkwardness like a man and go home and forget the situation ever happened. She cleared her throat. I jammed my hands into my old jeans pockets and looked downward. She moved her head slightly to face me. She didn't give me much of a choice.

"So, how have you been?" she asked haughtily, no more or less than

I'd expect from her. I waited for the rest. There was always more. Conversations aren't complete to Paige unless she's taken at least one big chunk of your self-esteem and ripped it to shreds. "Had sex with any of the grade nines this year? I heard they're the cream of the crop."

I rolled my eyes, but she didn't see it. Hopefully, she was trying to think of a less obvious stab at my ego. Like I haven't heard that one before, from complete strangers, no less. I sneered in her general direction, and didn't bother to grace her lovely comments with a response. Instead, I just wished this elevator ride would be over with.

Suddenly, I got my wish. Only not so much, since the whole elevator just seemed to stop in its path abruptly with a loud screeching brake sound coming from above our heads. None of the numbers I'd been watching were lit out anymore, only the number three flickered on and off sporadically. I tried not to think much of it--this was an old mall, these were old elevators, the mall was well-populated, it was mid-day on a Saturday, someone would be realizing the elevator was screwed up right this second. No worries.

"Let's not panic, there's a button you can push somewhere," she said, putting out her hands, trying to gain some sense of calm, when there was quite obviously no panic. I looked below the elevator level buttons and there was a small but bright red one with a symbol by it, an exclamation point. I leaned back against the back of the elevator and laughed emotionlessly.

"No effing kidding?" She turned around to me, stared with narrowed eyes, while I, ignoring the look, pointed to the necessary button. She didn't turn around quite yet. She had to take another stab at me before we got out of here and

went our separate ways.

"The last time I checked, you weren't an elevator expert. Actually, the last time I checked, you were manwhore Manning." Right, and I've never heard that one before either. She went back, to both giving her attention to the button and to pretending like I don't exist. "Therefore, leave the button pushing to me, okay, hon?" I scoffed, watching her press the button finally.

She only waited about ten seconds before deciding it was necessary to push the button again.

"Isn't this supposed to be instant?" she complained, though I'm not sure to whom, because I certainly didn't care. "It's not doing ANYTHING!" Now she was pressing it every two seconds, which I had an inkling wasn't a great idea.

"Well, I don't think jabbing at it is going to help," I said, tiredly. I was tired already of putting up with her attitude. She took a precious second from her button-pushing to turn around and glare at me.

"It's being unresponsive, hon. One more push and we'll be on our way out of here."

She jabbed at it, one last time, and I just stood there and stared at it as her finger came off it. It was stuck. Paige had broken the emergency button, our quick ticket out of here. I tried to keep some apathy about me, but this time, it was her fault, and there was something I could place the blame on

her, even if all else fails.

"Oh, way to go," I sneered, then began my mockery of her stupidity. "Just one more push..."

Today seemed to be a momentous day in my life. For once in my life, I seemed to make a complete idiot of myself. The situation seemed to be that of something pulled out of one of the sitcoms my mom divulges in along with a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Everything just seemed so incredibly surreal and plastic. If I was one to sport a dunce cap, I'd attempt to convince myself this was the nightmare from hell. It was the nightmare in which I was forced to be stuck in an elevator with Craig Manning because I needed retail therapy. It was the nightmare in which I was too tired to remind Craig of his status as a useless man whore properly. I was on the verge of giving into my nicotine cravings as they howled at me from within. However, I lacked the effort to dig into the depths of my purse which was filled to the brim with various objects. So I decided to slide down the cold metal wall of the elevator and rest on the floor of the dingy prison I was locked within. Normally, the thought of sitting on a foot print and dirt laced floor wouldn't have crossed my mind at all. However, I was completely and utterly tired and the residue wouldn't be seen on my dark antique wash Paris Blues jeans. So this part of the current scenario wasn't all that bad. Once I panned out and saw the bigger picture, I realized how much this completely and utterly sucked. My chances at attempting to have a positive outlook were nipped in the bud as I breathed in Mr. Negativity. The combination of confined dark spaces and Craig were aiding in a possible breakdown. So, a stopping of the negativity was in order.

I scoffed, "Why can't you shut up and make yourself useful?" Of course, that would be too much to ask of him. "So far, _I've_ been the only one attempting to get us out of here." It was probably due to the fact that I actually had places to go that didn't consist of the interior of his incredibly tacky car with a joint held between two of his fingers that were decorated with dirt beneath the nails. The concept known as personal hygiene was wasted on Craig and his sloppy appearance. Would it honestly kill a person to ward wrinkles from their clothing, brush their hair, and conceal their ugliness? However, careless people like those made us beautiful people stand out among the grimy folk.

He laughed dryly as his face turned to glance at mine, "Paige." I thought sentences were supposed to consist of at least three words strung together that had a coherent point. Another concept, this time the one of complete and coherent sentences, was wasted on Craig Manning.

However, he managed to redeem himself.

"Look up, look down look all around," Craig instructed me. Since when did he think he was running this show in such a bleak setting? It was almost cute, how completely deluded he was. Someone who had made the oh so smart decision to cheat on his incredibly decent girlfriend couldn't possibly possess the sense to give me instructions. The last time I checked, I could look up and down without being told to do so. "Does it look like there's any way out of here right now?"

Mr. Negativity lived up to his name once more. Of course, I was aware that the possibility of an immediate escape at the moment was zilch. But when did some optimism kill someone? Craig was a negativity germ, who attempted to spread his disease and make everyone else become incredibly gloomy. The only reason why he did it was because he was miserable with his current situation, which was entirely his fault. If hormones, stupidity, and seduction hadn't corrupted him, then he would have a smile plastered on his face and probably be accompanied by Ash in the elevator. But no, Craig wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box. Instead, he was the hormonal idiot of a crayon and would probably be that tacky macaroni and cheese colored crayon if he were an actual crayon.

"There's always the door," I informed him with an irritated tone. I wanted to get out of the elevator and make it to my car to have a cigarette before I was diagnosed as being clinically insane. I was in no mood to deal with complete and utter idiocy. "You can always go out and end up falling while I wait for help. I mean, you're just _so_ desperate to get out of here, hon." Obviously, I couldn't master the concept of coherent sentences at the moment. I was on the verge of being clinically insane though. It's humanly impossible to be perfect all of the time.

Now, it seemed as though I was crawling underneath his skin and striking a nerve. It was incredibly pathetic that as of right now, this was my source of entertainment: annoying Craig Manning. I could be reading tags and receipts. I could be searching through my purse to see all of the miscellaneous things that it contained. However, those all involved moving, which were something I so didn't want to at the moment. Annoying Craig didn't involve moving any body parts aside from my mouth. I was just so incredibly tired, irritated, and starving for nicotine. Today was not my day.

He rolled his eyes, something that was my trademark. "Well, I'm _sorry_ that I don't have super important things to do like you do, like paint my nails and watch The OC. Some of us don't feel the need to rush around everywhere and kiss everyone's ass."

Oh, wow, he was stellar at this game. I hated that. I hated the fact that someone such as Craig Manning had such an undesirable perception of me that was completely and utterly false. For one thing, I don't paint my nails. I either have Hazel do them or I go to this awesome place on High Street to have them done. Second of all, I rarely watched The OC due to the fact that it conflicted with my phone time with Hazel. Even some show with two highly attractive guys wouldn't compromise my phone time with my best friend. Okay, maybe occasionally it would. Lastly, kissing people's asses was something I avoided unless completely necessary.

I was about to go out on a limb and be slightly honest with him. I was tired of listening to his half baked attempts at annoying me and having them succeed. I just wanted to get far away from the situation at hand. So, maybe if he was aware we possibly shared some feelings, he would feel sympathetic and shut the hell up. It didn't require anything tiring such as getting up and moving around, but it was worth a try.

"Think what you want, hon. Frankly, I just want to get out of here and go home. Today has so not been my day," I replied tiredly. Hopefully he was cracking and ready to give into that voice in his head, screaming for him to close his mouth and let us be bathed in absolute silence until we were rescued.

"Yeah. Great," He muttered bitterly and sarcastically while reclaiming his position as Mr. Negativity.  
  
If there is such thing as a higher power, I'm sorry for some of the things that I have done. If you get me out of here safely, I'll promise to possibly take church more seriously as well as attempt to help out around the house more often. I'll visit my family a lot while I'm in college. Just get me out of here, unless you want me to rot in an elevator. I don't want to die next to Mr. Negativity. I just don't want to die or go insane. I just want to get out of here faster than you can say "Hallelujah".

I leaned my head into the elevator wall. This was derived word by word from one of those worst case scenario handbooks, that I unfortunately never intended to buy. More importantly, this was a hopeless situation.


End file.
